


Down in the Star Scrap

by raven_aorla



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe, SteamWorld Heist, The Vice Quadrant - Steam Powered Giraffe (Album)
Genre: Canon Trans Character, F/F, Headcanon, Knowledge of SteamWorld Heist Optional, Non-Graphic Smut, Official Vice Quadrant Timeline Compliant, Robot Sex, Stranded, The Spine and Hatchworth Ship It, Unconventional Erogenous Zones, mostly plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 05:14:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13710600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: On the way back from the Vice Quadrant, Rabbit, the Spine, and Hatchworth accidentally end up in an alternate universe full of other steam-powered robots in space. While the band is trying to find a way home and supporting themselves with their music, an occasional audience member catches Rabbit's attention.





	Down in the Star Scrap

**Author's Note:**

> This started simply with me speculating on how you could make SteamWorld Heist fit in the main SPG lore. Having done that, why WOULDN'T you put Rabbit with Piper?
> 
> Disclaimer: I haven't actually played SteamWorld Heist, but have watched several demos and read the TV Tropes page. Please forgive and feel free to point out errors.

They’d defeated the Space Giant in the Vice Quadrant and said goodbye to W.I.N.K the satellite. They’d sung to pods of space whales and gotten amazing video game scores. It wasn’t really Steam Powered Giraffe’s fault that after all that, they took a wrong turn in a wormhole and ended up in a universe even regularly-dimension-hopping Peter VI had never heard of. Though actually maybe he had, but hadn’t wanted the robots to get any ideas.

The band called it Steamworld, because every sentient creature in it seemed to be an automaton, and most of them were steam-powered. Humans had gone extinct or something when Earth exploded in this timeline. Everyone they talked to was hazy on the details. That was after the trio figured out the local language, too, though thankfully their software allowed them to assimilate it within a few days. What mattered was that they were in an area of space divided between rocky moisture farms on small moons that once held water and an archipelago of rusty and battered ships and space stations.

SPG needed water to keep themselves running, along with fuel to keep their ship running, while they figured out how to get home. They also needed to pay parking fees to keep their ship somewhere safe from Scrappers who’d tear them apart and Royalists who would ask too many questions and potentially lock them up for illegal immigration or something. Fortunately, they’d brought their instruments, and it hadn’t taken long to pick out which songs of theirs would appeal to robot crowds rather than human ones, then translate the lyrics. Most of the robots in these parts were programmed to appreciate music, but very few were either programmed or trained to actually play it.

“It’s a good thing we didn’t bring Steve like he wanted us to at first,” the Spine mused as they set up for one of their gigs.

Hatchworth nodded, tuning his bass. “He wouldn’t have lasted long. I don’t think I could have safely produced enough sandwiches out of my hatch for him all the time.” He’d gotten a lot of curiosity about his hatch, including from robots who found it sexy, but Hatchworth had never shown romantic or sexual interest in anyone or anything other than in a vague, abstract sense.

“We woulda put his skeleton on the outside of the ship as decoration to honor him,” Rabbit said absentmindedly. A beautiful and badass “cowbot” gal in an amazing hat was walking past them to go to the part of the space station where people traded weapons for gallons.

That particular bot didn’t stop to talk to them that time, nor the next few times Rabbit spotted her in the audience, but a few “weeks” later, she exchanged some words with the Spine during one of the band’s breaks. The Spine, who knew Rabbit better than anyone alive, told her, “Captain Piper Faraday, she’s like a hybrid robot cowboy pirate bounty hunter with a heart of gold, and yes, she’s single, and when she thought I was asking on my _own_ behalf, she said she wasn’t into masculine bots. You’re welcome.”

As the band’s popularity grew and they continued their tour, they wrote new songs to appeal to their new fans. Each of them also wrote a special song of their own. Hatchworth wrote a song expressing his fascination with “The Vast Frontier”. The Spine channeled his empathy for the downtrodden farmers that supplied everyone else with water, suggesting that “What We Need Are Some Heroes”. Rabbit wrote a song so obvious that her brothers didn’t bother teasing her about it. Besides, at least Piper couldn’t be dropped and accidentally broken in a parking lot like Jenny, or wasn’t simply a pretty animatronic in a derelict amusement park like Honeybee.

Rabbit spotted Piper the third time they performed it. Piper’s reputation had been rising as well, now that she and her growing crew had gotten rid of some particularly nasty Scrappers and were rumored to have taken down a few overstepping Royalist ships as well. Rabbit glitched out of nervousness as the song began. _“It’s like a dream, a silly fantasy I want to liiiiiive in, w-waiting just for you…_

Piper was heading towards the trading room, grip tight on her sack of loot. Rabbit kicked her voice up a notch in power and longing. _“I’d give my soul or my weight in gold to have a smile here that was my own.”_

Then Piper looked at her. Rabbit waved. Her optics widened and she gave a small wave back.

***

“Can I buy you a drink?” Piper asked Rabbit when the set was over. Rabbit glanced back at her brothers. The Spine made a shooing motion with a slight upturn of his lips. Hatchworth tipped his hat at Piper.

Piper ordered a briny water with an added tablespoon of WD-40, and told Rabbit to tell the barkeep what she wanted. Rabbit settled on a glass of fluoridated water rimmed with rust. “Wh-what’s it like being a captain of a ship?”

“Hectic, I suppose.” Piper’s face was not built in a way where she could really smile - Rabbit had been singing metaphorically - but her limbs seemed relaxed. She set her sack of loot on the floor, but kept both feet on it. “I’m not sure how to explain.”

“I’ve got some military experience, if that helps any.” The drinks arrived and Rabbit took as ladylike a sip as she could manage.

“Really? But you’re not a dieselbot.” Piper knocked back half her drink in one go. Her confusion was understandable. Steambots could fight unofficially, but the army ran purely on oil.

Rabbit didn’t tell Piper the whole truth, not just yet anyway, but there were steambots around here old enough to have been made by humans rather than other bots. She told Piper about how Pappy wanted to impress Dr. Delilah Morreo, who loved music, but how he ended up needing to send the band into battle on the back of a giant mechanical giraffe. This led naturally into how Piper went from a humble cowbot to the captain of her own ship, along with fond griping about her crew’s quirks (especially Seabrass) as Piper became more and more comfortable.

Eventually Hatchworth ran over and told Rabbit she could either head back to the S.S. Biscuiteer with him and the Spine, or she could make, “like, other arrangements, and join us for rehearsal? Also, howdy, Captain.”

“Uh, I-I-I…”

Piper said, “My crew’s on shore leave. I was just going to book one of the power-down places upstairs. You could…?”

Rabbit’s boiler fizzled. “Could I…?”

Hatchworth clasped his hands together. “Right-o. See ya, Rabs.” And scurried off.

“Nice wing-bots you have,” Piper said wryly. It took Rabbit a few seconds to realize this was an adaptation of the English idiom “wingmen”, as in friends who help you get a date, rather than Piper misunderstanding her brothers’ features.

Rabbit took a gulp of water to steady herself. If Peter VI was here he would probably argue this wasn’t Piper’s business, but Rabbit needed to know she’d be completely accepted if somehow something went wrong. “I would love to, but I gotta tell you something first. Pappy planned for me to be a girl, but when we had to go fight, he thought I should be a boy for that. It felt wrong for a looong time, trying to be a boy, and it was making me have all sorts of problems. I got fixed to how I was sp’osed to be pretty recently. I’m not totally used to my new chassis, even though it feels more right. T-t-that gonna be okay?”

Piper took Rabbit’s hand and squeezed it. “I’ll need to split the room fee. That gonna be okay?”

“Yeah.” Rabbit squeezed back.

***

Piper had to check in her laser-guided rifle to get a room key. Rabbit only had the clothes on her back and a few water-exchangeable tokens in her pockets. There was a complimentary quart on a little side table in the tiny room already. Some bots liked powering down standing up in a closet, and some liked lying down, or doing other things while lying down, so there was a bed, too.

A nice thing about this world was that since bots could vary so much in design, nobody expected anyone to completely understand each others’ workings right off the bat. After Piper hung up her hat, Rabbit asked if she could pet Piper’s close-cropped, purely aesthetic auburn hair while they sat side by side. Piper said it didn’t do anything for her when it came to sensation, but was amused by Rabbit’s fascination with the color and texture. She removed Rabbit’s stage costume and accessories carefully, saying they were too pretty to rush, while encouraging Rabbit’s eagerness to strip off Piper’s hardier, more functional clothing. She expressed awe at Rabbit’s intricate joints and delicate patches of green oxidized copper. Rabbit made up silly little songs on the spot about how tall and well-plated Piper was. Piper had been with a few bots who could kiss before. She hissed small tendrils of steam as Rabbit kissed her mouth and jaw, then less conventional places like her elbows and around the edges of her warmly orange-bright core.

That was what got the biggest reaction out of Piper. She exhaled more steam and asked - no, commanded - Rabbit to touch it more, lips and fingers both, not inside but skirting around the edge, more. More. It wasn’t like with a lot of human girls, according to what Rabbit had read and the few times she’d gotten the Spine to ‘fess up what he managed to do with his girlfriends, despite Pappy not making any of them completely anatomically correct. There wasn’t any sort of peak. Piper just kept telling Rabbit to keep going, until the moment she started to overheat and it stopped being fun for her. Then Rabbit stopped and cradled her in her arms for a while, letting her cool and talking fond nonsense.

Piper made a questioning noise and reached for Rabbit’s core, and Rabbit jerked backwards ( _stolen, shackled, exploding, waking to tragedy_ ) before remembering her manners. “S-s-orry, I don’t like to be touched there.”

Piper traced one of her cheek edges to soothe her. “I’m sorry. I should have asked. What would feel good?”

Rabbit only knew this from moments with the Walter Workers that would have been more awkward if all of them weren’t so immune to weirdness. “If you open my maintenance panel, there’s a purple wire. You just need to, uh, sort of, like, twist it back and forth. Not enough to pull it loose.” It was the primary circuitry for her sense of touch. The Walter Workers had learned how to fix her onstage breakdowns without messing with that particular wire.

It didn’t take long for Piper to find it, and -

Oh.

Wow.

Wow wow wow wow.

WOWWWWW.

She rebooted to Piper’s voice. “Your eyes glowed. One blue, one green. Then you steamed a bunch, flailed around, and shut down.”

“Sorry, I should, s-s-should have, should have told you I might do that when I feel a lot at once…”

“Stop apologizing. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“That was too good,” Rabbit explained softly. She realized her head was in Piper’s still-naked lap. She was okay with that.

Piper made an equivalent of a chuckle. “We should probably power down for a few hours now. My boiler’s running high and my circuits are fried from everything. Don’t get me wrong, perfect way to end a wake-cycle.”

Rabbit agreed as long as they could lie next to each other.

***

It became an irregular thing. Rabbit and Piper didn’t keep in touch, but if their paths happened to cross and they both had time to spare they would spend awhile together. They never stayed on each other’s ships. That’d feel too solid, too serious. SPG was not planning on staying here forever, and Piper led a dangerous life.

The political situation with the Queen was getting more and more worrying. Meanwhile, the band’s efforts to find a way home weren’t working.

Then during one moment of downtime, Rabbit approached the Spine as he was playing more of that centipede-or-whatever video game in his room. “Hey, you remember when Peter IV turned into a superhero?” Hatchworth was in the Vault at the time.

“I have a perfect long-term memory,” the Spine said, not getting up from his sprawl. Which was true, though his short-term memory sometimes left a lot to be desired.

“He went missing, right, but he couldn’t die, right? We were pretty sure. We know he stopped visiting Earth because he was so sad about other people being mortal. What if he’s still out there? Maybe he could help.”

The Spine sat up. “If he’s still out there, how could we get in touch with him?”

“Our music’s so popular now that it’s being broadcast on radio throughout the whole quadrant. There’s ways to boost signals. Piper told me about them. If we wrote a song - we could sing it in both Steamworld Standard and English, so they’d broadcast it here, but if he doesn’t know Steamworld Standard he could understand the English version.”

When they discussed this with Hatchworth, he wasn’t against the idea, but pointed out that boosting their signal and calling out to a human for help might draw Royalist attention to them. “We’re, you know, uber-popular with bots the Royalists don’t like. Especially your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Especially your lady-friend.”

Rabbit rolled her eyes, but he had a point. “What if we make it sound like we’re just telling an old human legend, but we put in a few details he knows only his family knows? Like about poor Holly, and about how he wanted to die rather than watch everyone else die?”

“Let’s get writing,” the Spine said.

Piper helped them get the equipment necessary and lent the services of her crew (well, she did charge a fee, but discounted) to help with setup. SPG claimed this was a special live performance broadcast to celebrate an anniversary of the band. Rabbit finally told her the truth.

“Maybe it’s best you leave anyway,” Piper said once she’d digested the information. She was a pragmatic bot and didn’t question that Rabbit’s creator’s uniquely talented grandson might be out there somewhere. “The missions we’re going on are getting even more intense. The Queen knows about us now. About me. I don’t want to paint a target on your back.”

Rabbit had no words, but she kissed her.

They sang some of their usual set first, as cover. Then Rabbit introduced their song as a reworking of an Earth legend, complete with verses in an Earth language that might be familiar to some of the old-timers out there.

They started with a recreation of what they thought it might have been like for Peter IV. Rabbit poured in all her bittersweetness at what her long-ago core explosion had caused: one Peter Walter dead, and another one changed into something he’d never wanted to be.

Hatchworth, meanwhile, did some entertaining dramatics. _The explosion! It hit Walter right in the cheeeest…_

Then it got to the critical part, and Piper and her crew pushed up the signal to the absolute maximum range, far beyond the Queen’s domain, eventually beyond this solar system, even if it’d take awhile to get out there. They added playful touches so he’d know, he would absolutely have to unmistakably know who was calling for him.

 _Commander Cosmo saves the day_  
_A hero overnight_  
_He rocketed into outer space just by thinking about flight_

 _There was no explanation how he did what he did._  
_He unearthed special powers from his deep cosmic id_  
_He could eat thirty moons and still eat thirty-five more._  
_And his super space muscles were hard to ignore._

 _Commander Cosmo save us!_  
_It’ll never be the same_  
_The star streak of justice flies_

_Just call the commander’s name…_

Rabbit caught Piper’s stoic face as she sang, and she almost faltered but had to keep going. The end of the song was also important.

 _Commander Cosmo, save us_  
_It’ll never be the same_  
_There’s nothing left to save us, and the Vice is what's to blame_

 _Commander Cosmo, save us_  
_Save us from the end_

_What will we do when the cosmos quakes and the gods above descend?_

***

He came for them. Not right away, but he did. He suddenly materialized inside their ship with his helmet made of UV rays and his space cape of starlight. He asked about the situation. At the end, he asked, “You’re up to the Sixth now? Is he Mark’s grandson, or Wanda’s?” By process of elimination, it had to have been one of Peter VI’s siblings to have continued the line.

“Yes, Commander,” the Spine said. “He’s Mark’s grandson. Wanda’s still alive, actually.”

Commander Cosmo’s crystalline ether-form face flickered for a moment. Rabbit wondered if the Spine saying that had been the best idea. “What’s he like?”

“Smart! He repaired me and he made this ship. Sometimes he uses a cane but sometimes he doesn’t. He got in a blue matter accident too, but it just hit him in the face. He wears a special mask now.” Hatchworth mimed the weird keyhole opening Peter VI had never explained to them.

“...Interesting. Rabbit. You’re female.”

“Yep.” Rabbit smiled nervously, hoping he wouldn’t make a big deal about it. She remembered giving him piggyback rides and intervening in toy sword battles with his brother and sister. (“Turn Back the Clock”, indeed.) “Can you get us home? Your family needs us, and we miss Earth. And can you tell us what’s been going on with you? I think it’d help everyone have closure, especially Wanda. Plus, uh, maybe we could make some cool songs out of it.”

He nodded. “Is there anything you want to do first?”

Rabbit didn’t know what the boys did, but she took all their remaining Gallons and paid off Piper and her crew’s bar tabs, leaving a goodbye note for her as well. And she wrote one last song for them to perform, the encore for one last performance. They made sure it would be recorded and replayed on the radio, so it would hopefully reach Piper sooner or later.

“This is for someone very special,” Rabbit said before the power chords and maniacal laughter started up.

_NO MORE QUEEN_

_NO MORE QUEEN_

_No more rules, no more fools_  
_Everybody scream_  
_NO MORE QUEEN_

 _Well Piper’s got a shot, so ready or not_  
_We will play your game_  
_But you will fear our names..._

***

They were just about to board the ship when a voice shouted, “WAIT!”

Piper ran up. “You mentioned you used to have a hat.” Hats were status symbols here, and Piper had been curious why Rabbit lacked one. She then pulled a beautiful black hat out of her swag bag and placed it on Rabbit’s head.

“Thank you,” Rabbit gasped, feeling the brim and obvious quality. "I'll wear this at shows."

“Shot it off a Scrapper's head. Thought it’d suit you. Thank you for the song. I think it means a lot to a lot of us, not just me. Thank you for everything.” She hugged her. “Good luck.”

“You too.” Rabbit kissed Piper, then adjusted one of her own lyrics to fit her feelings. “I’ll always cherish you, no matter our final fates.”

And she did.


End file.
